


A Life's Forecast

by gala_apples



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crush, Divination, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:25:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon only gets his future told when he can no longer avoid it. Set in a verse where divination is believed rather than religion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life's Forecast

In Nevada abstaining from having your future told isn’t really an option. Unlike some of the more forceful states, in Nevada it’s not straight up illegal to avoid being read. Still, most employers won’t hire you if you don’t attach your forecast to your resume to prove you’re a good prospect. For all intents and purposes it’s a choice that isn’t really a choice.

Where Brendon has some room for choice is the divining methodology. There are six ways of having one’s future told. At least there are six government licensed forms, people make up all sorts of shit in basements or back rooms the same way people used to make their own liquor. A slight chance of getting what you’ve asked for, an almost overwhelming chance of crippling failure. Which method you choose says a lot about you; if you pick something that doesn’t fit your personality your future will refuse to be told. Kira does the hiring for her restaurant, and she says she doesn’t even read the potential employee’s forecast, just knows that a dervisher won’t feel comfortable in a room full of leafers and so avoids hiring him.

Brendon is the last of his friends to be read. There’s a wobbly sort of feel to not knowing what the future holds. Each morning he gets to wake up and wonder what’s going to happen, if today is the day he’s going to die or get famous or fall in love. It’s like waking up and wondering if gravity still exists, or if the sun is still burning in the sky.

Ryan was the first to be read. No one was surprised when he chose glossolalia. He loves words, can string together phrases fifty syllables long at the drop of a hat. Speaking in tongues was the only real option for him. They don’t really hang out at the Ross house, it’s not a comfortable place to be for longer than running in to use the bathroom, but he’s seen Ryan’s notes from that session transcribed and translated framed on his bedroom wall. More than a story to him, Brendon suspects he finds it art.

Spencer followed all of two days after Ryan. Spencer’s method wasn’t a shock either. Phrenology’s the most logical of the six divining methods, less feel for the spirit and more textbook this means that. Of all of them, Spencer’s the one with the most need for a straightforward answer.

Brendon doesn’t like either of his lifelong friends’ choices. Nor does he like the choice of his newest friend. Tasseography might have worked for Jon, but it won’t for him. To have your tea leaves read you need to actually ingest the tea. Brendon hates tea. It always tastes dull, and sometimes there’s the added bonus of tiny bits of leaf coating the inside of your mouth.

Dervishing sounds fun, and it’s actually second to phrenology in accuracy. The shapes that the dabbed away sweat make onto the specially prepared towels can be read fairly easily. Unfortunately it has a poor reputation, and Brendon is well aware that his entire network of family and relatives would look down on him for the choice. For a while he strongly considers hand over hand. The idea that guided instrument playing can tell you everything about your life is amazing. The downside to hand over hand is obvious though; his aunt never drank tea again after finding out she would die at age thirty seven. If he’s got something bleak coming he doesn’t want the knowledge to be tied to music. The only thing that seems true enough to still capture him, distant enough to not hurt, and respectable enough to please his parents is image capturing, professionally known as coloromancy.

Lectures about not avoiding the future have been getting more frequent. At school he’s got concerned guidance counselors and teachers, at home he’s got his brothers and sisters and parents. The Slushie Hut manager has informed Brendon he’ll have no choice but to cut his hours if he can’t be reliable, which is code for give us your prospect papers or we’ll give you one shift a week. When the people who are easiest on him are Ryan Ross and Spencer Smith it’s a sign that Brendon doesn’t need to be a diviner to read.

The guidance counselor who seems most worried about his well-being encourages going to a master of the craft to get the best possible reading. Everyone that has Urie blood has an opinion on who Brendon should see, and a bored browse shows there are a dozen ads in the YellowPages proclaiming specialty stores. Brendon ignores all of it. There’s a shop a few down from his store that has all six kinds. The giant neon green sign proclaims Yesterday’s Kids, and there’s darker green soap writing on the window that says _helping create tomorrow’s adults._ When he gets his ten minute break there’s almost always a few guys standing outside having a smoke, talking about things that Brendon can’t quite hear, laughter that he can hear. If the atmosphere inside is anything like the people outside it seems like the only good place to get his future told.

Still, even after he makes up his mind on location and method, he doesn’t go the few feet down the sidewalk. Not until Clark gives him an ultimatum; future forecast or eight hours scheduled next week. Brendon can’t cover his bus pass with that money, having his part time reduced that small isn’t an option. So on one of his days off he goes in.

The shop is small. There’s a tiny space up front with two chairs, and a counter. Behind the counter is a hallway with three doors, one locked with an alarm pad. It’s enough to make him think someone is illegally living in the back room. but it’s not really his business. Everything is colourful and spectacular, Brendon envies them for spending eight hours here rather than his dreary beige Hut. The only spots of colour there are from the fruits he has to blend. There are three guys behind the counter, only two look up when opening the door makes a sound ring off. It’s not the normal light tinkle of a windchime, it’s a short guitar riff. Brendon doesn’t know how they rigged it, but he likes it.

“Hi. We don’t normally do walk-ins, not everyone is here. If you’re looking for glossolalia or tasseography Mike and James aren’t in. I can help you with hand over hand though.” For a second Brendon reconsiders it. Most men with long hair look like they want to beat the crap out of you before they jump back on their Harley and ride off with a girl in denim sitting on the back of the bike. This guy looks friendly, like someone you can trust. But then he thinks of Aunt Kalee. That can’t happen to music, music’s too important to have associated with negative memories.

“Thanks, but I want image capturing.”

“Gee!” the short one bellows.

“Christ Frankie, watch the eardrums next time,” the bleached one bitches.

One of the side doors open and out wanders a man with the worst dye job Brendon’s ever seen. Considering he works in a smoothie store and has dozens of teenagers and platinum blond soccer moms pass through every hour that's saying something. Brendon’s thinking it was initially red, but now it’s a sickly sort of orange, with almost an inch of dark roots showing. It doesn’t exactly inspire artistic confidence.

Clearly the biker guy sees his trepidation. “If it makes you feel better, when he forgets to shower it’s usually because he’s working on a piece. You ever been in the gallery next door?”

Brendon has. Once in curiosity he entered every shop in the strip mall. He’d backed out of the gallery rapidly though, certain that any moment someone in a beret would come sneer at him. If even one piece was this man’s, Brendon retracts all feelings of hesitance.

“Hey. I’m Gerard. Did you have an appointment, or-”

“Um, I’m a drop in? I hope that’s okay? I could come back, it’s just my boss won’t give-”

“No, it’s good. It’s better, it means you felt a call to come here. Come to the back with me?”

The back is the room on the right. It’s pretty small, but then image capturing doesn’t take much, just a flat surface and paint. Brendon’s heard stories of shitty diviners making people lay on the floor. One of the teens at his church had to get his done while on a mission, they had him lie on a wooden board held up with saw horses. This room is downright luxurious comparatively, it has a small shower and a space heater in the opposite corner, a laundry basket full of haphazardly folded sheets and a shelf full of huge jugs of paint. It also has a regular bed. Sure it crinkles when he rests his body down after hanging his clothes on the provided hook, revealing plastic sheets under the normal fitted sheet, but that’s understandable. If Gerard has multiple appointments a day surely no one wants to lay on a wet mattress.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it’s not for Gerard to climb up the back of the bed and sit on his ass. It could be an erotic pose, might look it to anyone that passes by the door. Except the door is closed for privacy, except Gerard is still wearing jeans and a shirt, denim rough against his hips, except Brendon doesn’t feel threatened or even aroused. It just feels safe, feels like how things should be. He’s about to acknowledge the arms of Fate, and he’s happy it’s this rough looking man leading him there.

“I’m gonna start now. It’ll be cold, but hey, it’s better than Frank making you spin until you puke, right?” Gerard doesn’t wait for an answer, just puts something against his spine. It has to be a brush. He isn’t sure why that’s a surprise. It’s not like Gerard would want to fingerpaint on him. Besides, using a brush puts another layer between them, which is safer when the vast majority of Gerard’s clients are underage.

The paint is runny, more so than acrylic normally is. Brendon can only figure it for being watered down; a normal consistency wouldn’t run down his sides so quickly. The dripping doesn’t stop Gerard. Brendon can feel the way his thighs flex as he twists to dip his brush in a different colour. He shivers as Gerard coats part of his shoulder, the movement making the pool at the small of his back ripple. Gerard occasionally shifts, to get the backs of his forearms, or to shuffle down and hover over his knees as he paints his ass. Brendon just breathes into the pillow and waits for the man to finish.

It’s easy to lose time. There’s no clock to stare at, not even an artsy sculpture with no numbers, just two shifting hands showing it's purpose. If there was one Brendon doesn’t think he’d look at it. You don't stop in the middle of having your fate divined just because it's getting late and you might miss your bus.

Eventually Gerard climbs off. Brendon can hear him moving around the room, but doesn’t try to look. It would ruin the design on his back. He doesn’t need to look anyway, he trusts Gerard and that whatever he’s doing is right.

“This one isn’t anything. It’s just to get rid of the excess,” he explains in a low voice. Brendon hears that, then the snap of cotton being whipped through the air. A sheet settles over him and immediately begins to absorb the layer of liquid on the back half of his body. After a minute Gerard pulls it away and tosses it into the corner. “This one is the true print.”

The second sheet doesn’t absorb, rather it sticks to the thin layer of paint still on him. Gerard’s hands run slowly over his limbs and back, making sure the transfer takes properly. Even through the cotton they feel warm. The sheet peels away with careful precision, it's obvious it's an often practised movement. Brendon moves until he’s sitting crosslegged watching Gerard hang the sheet from an almost invisible clothesline. There are pools of wet paint under his ass, and he shivers despite the overly heated air.

“Do you want to shower first, or do you want to talk first?”

“Wouldn’t it be more efficient to talk first?”

“Well I can’t use the room until you’re done either way. Plus it’s not really about what I want, that would be bullshit. This is a defining moment. Or at least it usually is. Mikey’s got this friend that had a fuckin’ roller-coaster of a print, awesome things and terrible things, and he never acted like it mattered at all. So you tell me what _you_ want.”

“Tell me a story,” he asks.

Gerard starts to explain what the swirl of bright blue bleeding into teal by his ankle means, arms gesticulating wildly. Brendon knows he should be listening. Instead he can’t help but wonder how often customers fall in love with diviners, and if it’s ever possible for them to return the feeling.


End file.
